Concept development for kindergarten children through a health simulation

According to many dental professionals, the decay process resulting from the accumulation of sugar on teeth is a very difficult concept for young children to learn. Playing the dental hygiene game with Thinking Tags not only brings context into the classroom, but also allows children to work with digital manipulatives that provide rich personal experiences and instant feedback. Instead of watching a demonstration of the accumulation of sugars on a computer screen, or being told about dental health, this simulation allows pre-school children to experience improving or decaying dental health without any real adverse health effects. Small, wearable, microprocessor-driven Tags were brought into the kindergarten classroom to simulate the decay process, providing information about sugars in foods and creating a discussion about teeth. Preliminary analyses suggest that this program was effective and enthusiastically received by this age group.